Zion Mystery Canyon Seasonal Lottery

Mystery Canyon is a canyoneering route in Zion National Park. Its photographs show a sandstone slot with smooth, water-sculpted walls — some stretches holding silt-brown water deep enough to wade chest-high with a hand braced on either side, others swept dry and clean, with parties moving down on rope between the two walls. Lower down the route runs over streaked, water-stained rock, and the last wall drops into the wide river corridor below, where shallow green water runs over a cobble bed beneath tall banded cliffs and people stand in the current. Grass, willows and low brush grow on the ledges at the canyon mouth. Zion National Park is managed by the National Park Service.